Used Cooking Oil: A Hot Commodity!

Used cooking oil has become such a hot commodity all over Florida as well as the rest of the country, that multiple rings of thieves have recently been caught stealing restaurants’ used fryer oil from their storage facilities. These thefts have perplexed authorities and restaurants for more than a year now as they have been unable to catch the thieves red-handed in the act. A recent report revealed that the police have tracked down this ring of robbers via security cameras and discovered that they have been using hoses in order to suck the used cooking oil out of the vat where the business’s old deep fryer grease is kept. The ring of thieves’ practices reveal that they have been targeting businesses and then pump out their yellow grease tanks. They then resell the used cooking oil material nationwide to various processors and handlers. This is not only obviously illegal, but it essentially hurts a business owner’s bottom line as well as the legitimate grease handlers and such as Green Star Biodiesel..

It is extremely important to make regular, schedules with used cooking oil collection companies, such as Green Star Biodiesel to ensure that your used oil doesn’t remain sitting in storage, thus becoming a tempting target for these thieves. The used cooking oil can be sold to recycling plants, where it can be used as biodiesel fuel. The material we collect is cleaned and recycled into a finished yellow grease that is then sold on a commodity market for animal feed, soaps, or biodiesel production for example.

Biodiesel is truly a remarkable byproduct; it is non-toxic, biodegradable and does not produce ozone-depleting black smoke when burned by transportation fleets and big rigs. Furthermore, the four main byproducts include waste water, glycerin, yellow grease solids, and excess alcohols. Each of these byproducts is repurposed and recycled into a variety of innovative products. For example the glycerin, is produced during the chemical reaction to purify the oil and is then used to make hand soap. The solid byproducts have been found to be extremely effective for use in water treatment facilities. When repurposed as anaerobic digesters, the solids break down to form methane gas. This has a wide range of multi-purpose use in the fields of agriculture and electrical power generation.

It is easy to see why this used cooking oil and yellow grease should really be called “yellow gold” for its versatility and abundance. Making the environmentally conscious decision to hire a used cooking oil collection company like Green Star Biodiesel is a movement toward helping keep your Florida community safer, greener while doing your smart and ethical part in reducing the global overdependence on fossil fuels and thus keeping our planet cleaner for future generations.